Obrienp

That’s the story as I understand it. I think the original was fretless and you can get the Bass Centre version fretless for a hundred quid more LoL! I thought about the Bass Centre Wyman bass but it does look weird and it’s quite a wide nut (41mm).

Kinda.

This is why I have about half a dozen music theory books and the same number of scale compendiums. I have yet to find an explanation that I can understand. As for the circle of fifths….. Fortunately, I have got to a place where I know enough theory and have enough practical experience, to be able to come up with reasonable bass lines on the fly. They may not be the most original but they work. BTW, I rarely use the minor pentatonic on its own but it can be unavoidable, if playing rock and blues based on riffs. I do like the advice, attributed to Victor Wooten, that you can only ever be one semitone out and the groove is more important than the notes.

I could probably sum it up as very little. I have books and charts of different types of scale in each key ranging from major through Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, mixolydian, etc, pentatonic major and minor, etc. I then have theory books that talk about modes of each scale and say things like the Dorian mode is like starting the major scale from the 2nd degree of the scale, which is clearly different to the C Dorian scale on my charts because that starts on the root and has flatted 3 and 7, whereas the C major scale has no flats or sharps, wherever you start playing it from. I don’t find this particularly helpful, or useful.

Er, not really but thanks for trying.

Yeah, I understand that (I originally got there through experimentation) but is that modes, or scales?

I was very interested to see this thread. @Sean mentioned the difficulty I have with modes in general. Very interesting but how the hell do you use them? I am still waiting for a good explanation beyond the sort of throw away comments that usually accompany tutorials like “commonly used in Latin music, or used in Jazz”. It seems to be a largely academic exercise. I am sure that for some people the penny drops eventually but it hasn’t for me. It’s seems a bit akin to learning maths: maths teachers are universally bad at explaining the why. It just seems to be something you get, or something you don’t. Personally I only discovered the usefulness of some maths concepts when I started coding software, long after I left school. This is the way I feel about modes but the light bulb moment hasn’t occurred for me.

This reminds a little bit of the 70s. There was pop music that filled the charts and there was the “underground” scene, largely dominated by bands. If you were cool, you advocated the most obscure bands possible (like John Peel). Occasionally some decent bands crossed into the charts but it was fairly rare. It was mostly teeny bopper stuff. Admittedly there were more bands involved, even in the charts but a lot of it was very manufactured. Singles buyers were in their early teens and singles got played on the radio. Real music existed on LPs and appealed to an older teen/young adult market. Now we are looking back on the chart music of the 70s and deciding that actually some of the bands like Sweet and the Bay City Rollers weren’t that bad after all. Remember ABBA was pretty uncool to start off with, after all they won Eurovision! Now they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and their song writing was pretty good (in retrospect). There are lots of bands around now making good original music, it’s just we don’t hear about them much on mainstream media. Also they may not look that pretty, which seems to be a number one requirement for success in the mainstream (with a few exceptions). The money has disappeared from the recording market, so it is very hard for serious musicians to make a living plowing their own furrow. We can thank the streaming services for that: music has become devalued. Somewhere along the way we forgot to teach current generations critical thinking, so they absorb the stuff they see online without challenging it: politics, fake news, influencers and unfortunately music.

You missed your chance. There were two up for sale here on BC but @richardd has withdrawn them.

@neepheid, sorry if someone else already suggested this but why not get the original pickup rewound? Might be cheaper than a replacement and you can specify exactly how you want it to sound. There must be a tech somewhere near you who can do that. As a guide, my local luthier charged me £40 a couple of years ago to rewind and convert to separate coil leads (for the single/parallel/series switching) on a MM style pickup, which had been (badly) resin potted. He also potted it properly in wax.

I must be a gear abstinence incel! My wallet has been safe by dint of the fact that all Barefaced, LFSys and similarly desirable lightweight cabs posted for sale on BC have been located hundreds of miles away and the sellers won’t post/courier, or they just want a bit too much for my budget. I would probably fall off the abstinence wagon pretty quickly, if a LFSys Monaco or Monza came up within easy driving distance (or post available). I missed out on a Monaco last year because I was on holiday abroad when it came up but it was snapped up by a friend, so all good.

No idea how they compare sound wise but I note that the newish Markbass 58R Energy and Pure 4 x 10s are the same price new as a BF Two10 and only weigh 2.5Kg more (metal grill version). Apparently the Pure has more top end. I have a well broken in BF Two10S and as previously mentioned, it has a very vintage sound. It sounds great when you are rehearsing but can be a bit mushy and indistinct in a gig. Obviously the room has quite an effect on that, as does the amp you are using with it. I have a vintage voiced amp and it doesn’t combine too well with the Two10 because it is vintage squared. On the other hand my Markbass LMIII goes pretty well with it. I’m not sure how much the tweeter option would change the equation with the Barefaced 10CR based cabs. As I understand it, the BF Four10 is pretty much 2 Two10s in one box sound wise but louder.

Much nicer than the grain on my sycamore bodied P. 👍

Nice! Interesting grain on the body. Is that zebra wood?

Exactly what I was thinking.

@itu Thank you. I think I’ve got there now.

I’m almost there. Isn’t the range of a 4 string bass something like 41 - 4,000 hz in standard tuning? Don’t you need to be able to reproduce the 41 hz, or are you saying we don’t really hear anything below 60 hz? What about 5 strings with a low B?

@nekomatic Thank you for the response. That is reassuring, although confusing for the uninitiated like me. The cabinet in question was a 2 x 12 but I dithered long enough for somebody else to snap it up anyway. I was more concerned about the possible ramifications of the driver specifications that I turned up during my research, which is why I asked the question. I still don’t understand how a driver that the manufacturer has rated at eg 45 hz - 14,000, can deliver 35 hz - 20,000 hz, if put in the right enclosure. I’ll just have to take it on trust. I’ve decided that I am going to stick to ready made cabs, rather than going down the DIY route.

I suspect this topic may have been covered in one way or another but I was unable to find the topic in a search. Please point me to the previous thread if the subject has been covered. I have recently been looking at the claimed usable frequency ranges of bass drivers from various manufacturers: Eminence, Celestion, Lavoce, Faital, etc. Very few claim to have a useable range below 45 hz but these same drivers are used in many cabinets that claim frequency ranges of 40 hz or below. BF claims 30 hz from their Emminence based cabs but I know their drivers are a proprietary design. What is going on? Are some cabinet manufacturers telling porkies about the cabilities of their cabinets, or is there something in the internal design of the cabinets that increases the useable frequency range beyond that of the drivers? Alternatively, are the manufacturers making drivers for the OEM market that have a better frequency range than the units they sell to consumers? P.S. I was looking at the market because I heard of an empty cabinet that was going cheap. Having looked at what was available and the price of drivers, I decided it was not the bargain it appeared. Why would you want a driver that couldn’t reproduce a low E, let alone an open B?

Unfortunately, now discontinued by the looks of it: the specs have gone from the Ibanez website as far as I can see. From memory and It depends what you mean by thinnest: it had a 38mm nut like the SR series but also widened quite a bit by the 12th fret upwards (like other Ibbies). Neck depth was very much like the SR series, so shallow. MTD do a medium scale that just looks like an expensive version of the Mezzo (just under £1K) but I guess it’s got more than that going for it: active electrics, etc and it is available still (at Bass Direct anyway). Might be worth checking out. The Squier Jaguar Bass with the single MM style humbucker has a nice Jazz style neck. Again from memory I remember it being a bit deeper than the Mezzo but not quite as wide at the dusty end. I might be mis-remembering though. Others might be able to help. An addendum to the above: that’s all about the 4 string versions. I don’t know how the Mezzo and MTD fives pan out but they are bound to be wider than the above. You might also want to check out the Warwick Rockbass Star Bass semi that has a 38.5mm nut. I’m not sure what the depth and width are like further up the neck but it looks Jazz like in the pics. I had serious GAS for one but opted for the Guild Starfire 1 shortie in the end. It was about £500 versus about £900. I would have preferred the medium scale of the Warwick though.

There is a recent thread discussing the effect of doubling the number of drivers and loudness. I can’t now find it but you may have better luck searching. Various BC members who know what they are talking about have chimed in. A lot of it went over my head but what i took out of it was: doubling the number of drivers, ie, 2 x 12, instead of 1 x 12, will give you a 3 Db increase, everything else being equal. In terms of watts, 10 times is twice as loud (all else being equal) ie, 100 watts is twice as loud as 10 watts, so to be twice as loud as 100 watts, you need to go to 1,000! However, there are a lot of variables involved and our perception of loudness depends a lot on the frequencies involved. The long and short of it seemed to be, as previously stated, your amp running at 4 ohms instead of 8 ohms won’t in itself sound that much louder (even though it normally roughly doubles the wattage). However, if you got your amp to run at 4 ohms by doubling the drivers (of the same size, excursion, etc) that will sound appreciably louder because of the extra displacement. I am talking rules of thumb here, not absolutes. If any knowledgeable people are reading this, please correct me if what I have said above is wrong, or misleading. Anyway, where I was leading to, is that I agree with what @Chienmortbb about a single good 8 ohm cab versus a single 4 ohm. The beauty of the single 8 ohm cab is that, when you can afford it, getting another will give your 3 db boost and still be within the capabilities of your amp (4 ohms). The next trick is getting the right cab, which leads us back to LFSys, Barefaced, etc. All cabs are not equal. There are others related discussions like headroom and perceived increases in depth of tone when you double the drivers. There seems to be quite a lot of folklore involved in these discussions, like the perceived difference in loudness between valve watts and solid state. I haven’t seen any convincing arguments either way on that. I am guessing, if you get a 3 db boost from doubling your drivers, that boosts the lower frequencies to a level where we notice them more. Our hearing being biased in favour of mids and highs. Sorry gone off beam a bit 🥴.

It’s actually a bit smaller than a standard Fender headstock IMO but that sort of size, which possibly makes it look disproportionate on an SS.

There is a Barefaced Big Twin for sale for £800 in the listings. I have no connection with the seller but that seems like a fantastic deal, if you want something that is not going to fart out on the lows at volume. If you don’t need the highs, you can turn the compression driver down. I suggest it is all the cabinet anyone is going to need but might be eclipsed by my next suggestion. On the modular front, LFSys has been mentioned and I can second that, being the owner of a Monza (10”). The Monaco (12”) must be even more bullet proof. Rated at 600 watts AES @ 8 ohms it’s going to cope with all but the highest output amps at full chat. Don’t take my word for it though, search for the threads about LFSys on here and/or drop @stevie a DM to discuss your needs.